In a letter written to Chairman Senate and speaker of the national assembly of Pakistan, the speaker of Palestine National Council urged the Pakistan leadership to urgently intervene to release the prisoner suffering from cancer and COVID-19 in Israeli prison

Shujaat Hamza/DNA

ISLAMABAD : The Speaker of the Palestine National Council, Saleem Al Za’anoon has urged Pakistan  to urgently intervene to release the prisoner Kamal Abu Wa’ar and other elderly prisoners who are suffering from life threatening diseases in Israeli occupation prisons.

In a letter written to Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani and Speaker of National Assembly Asad Qaiser, The Palestinian speaker stated that Kamal Abu Wa’ar has been detained for 18 years and his life is in severe danger and requires immediate intervention to save his life. Kamal Abu Wa’ar has been suffering from a malignant tumor in the throat and is recently infected with coronavirus. He is now suffering from a drastic deterioration of health and requires urgent treatment.

It further added that lives of approximately 700 sick prisoners are in danger too, of which 300 prisoners suffer from chronic diseases at great risk, and are exposed to infection with COVID-19. They require your quick intervention to save their lives.

The Palestinian Speaker stated that he would like to inform that despite the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, the situation in Israeli prisons did not show any positive change, and that the Israeli prisons did not take any necessary health measures to protect the Palestinian prisoners from the fatal virus. Which raised the level of fear and anxiety among prisoners and their families.

He added that the level of Israeli disregard for the lives of these prisoners has reached the point that (12) prisoners have lost their lives in the Israeli occupation prisons during the past two years, due to the policy of deliberate medical negligence, bringing the number of victims of this policy to (69 prisoners), out of (224) prisoners who have been martyrs in these prisons since the Israeli Occupation in 1967.

Saleem Al Za’anoon emphasized at implementing the relevant Geneva Conventions on Palestinian prisoners and detainees in occupation prisons, and the time for human rights, regional and international human rights institutions and parliaments of the world to assume their legal, humanitarian and moral responsibilities towards these prisoners, and act urgently to release them, to put an end to this disregard of the lives of (4,700) Palestinian prisoners, among them are (41) female captives, (160) detained children and hundreds of patients and the elderly.